Evening Stars (27 page)

On a slightly more pressing note, without the critique group, she had no feedback. An oddly freeing thought. She sat up again and grabbed the pad of paper she kept by the bed for bursts of ideas about future articles. She scanned the list and saw there were three articles about falling in love and/or dealing with a relationship, the notes about raiding grandma’s closet and a couple of sentences on how to survive a family vacation when it was just you, your parents and your siblings.

Of all of them, the articles she was most excited to write were the ones about love. Falling in love, dealing with a breakup, wondering if he even knew you were alive. She knew she connected with her readers—she had the fan mail and letters to prove it. So maybe the solution to her writing dilemma was to look at which articles got the most feedback and figure out why. Then she could combine that with what she most liked to write and voila. Success. Or if not success, then at least a sense of purpose.

She logged on to her work email and searched for those month-end reports some tech person was always sending. The ones that showed where she got the most hits and responses.

Two hours later, she saw that her readers loved her falling in love articles, too. Most of her fan mail came in the form of questions about relationships—mostly with boys, but sometimes with family. Girls were as confused now as she had been at their age. They were just better dressers.

She flopped back on the bed and wondered what to do with the information. She loved reading young adult fiction but had assumed she had to write a “real” novel about grown-ups. Her last attempt had been about a young woman in her twenties. But her core audience was younger than that. The bulk of demographics for the magazine were thirteen to twenty-five, with the majority of readers still in high school.

She thought about how many questions she’d had while she was growing up. How Nina was her world and yet she resented her as much as she loved her. How she hadn’t wanted to go away to college, but also hadn’t felt she’d had a choice. That if she’d refused, she would have been throwing Nina’s gift back in her face, and then Nina might not love her anymore. While Bonnie had been the fun parent, Nina had been the one to keep their world in order. She could never have risked losing that. She still couldn’t.

“Oh, my God!”

Averil stumbled to her feet. Penny raised her head from her bed, as if asking if they were leaving.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” Averil murmured absently, reassuring the dog even as her mind continued to swirl.

Was that it? Was that at the very center of her problem? That she hadn’t emotionally separated from Nina enough to be comfortable making her own decisions on the off chance Nina might not approve? Was Kevin right? If Nina was the voice in her head, then everything had to go through the Nina filter. Any decision that might upset her sister left Averil feeling emotionally abandoned.

As a child, without her sister’s love, she knew she would die. Had she forgotten to unlearn that lesson? Because in truth, Nina rarely disapproved. Nina was supportive. Sure they fought and got on each other’s nerves, but if she had a dream, she knew Nina would be there for her. So, was it worse than hearing Nina in her head? Was it hearing an abusive form of Nina she’d made up from personal insecurities?

She was stuck, always waiting for approval from someone who didn’t really exist. Someone she’d created herself to keep from trying and failing.

Nina cared as much as a sibling could, but this wasn’t about her. Averil couldn’t put a name to her condition, but she knew it had a lot to do with the dynamics of their family. Of Bonnie refusing to grow up and Nina never being the child and Averil in the awkward position of being taken care of, all the while suspecting the price her sister paid.

She sat back on the bed and pulled her laptop toward her. She opened a new Word file, then started typing. About a teenaged girl and the boy she liked and her crazy family who found a rare coin worth far more than any of them could imagine.

* * *

Nina stepped out of Andi’s house, grateful the day had ended. She was exhausted. The previous day’s trip to Seattle had settled some problems, but it had been two nights since she’d slept well. The first night, she’d been on painting watch. Last night she’d found herself unable to stop thinking about Dylan and that damned kiss.

What had he been thinking, doing that to her? You couldn’t just walk up to someone and kiss her and get away with it. Except it seemed you could. Especially when the kissee—her—kissed back.

She didn’t know what he wanted or expected. She also didn’t know what
she
wanted. Dylan was so different from Kyle. More mature, but also more comfortable to be with. They had a past. Not that she was interested in dating Dylan, or that he had asked, which returned her to the confusing place where she’d spent much of the night.

She turned the corner and saw a man leaning against her car. He was tall and blond and when he saw her, he gave her a slow, sexy smile.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

While her brain was busy processing how good he looked and how sweet the words sounded, her body was off with other matters. Her girl parts urged a close encounter, her hands itched to be touching him everywhere and her feet were carrying her toward him as if she had every intention of throwing herself at him.

Confusion brought her to a stop only a couple of feet away.

What was wrong with her? Two days ago, she hadn’t wanted to have sex with Kyle. She’d practically decided she was never seeing him again. Yesterday she’d been kissing Dylan, and now she was getting all tingly at the sight of Kyle and wondering if it would be tacky to have sex in her car?

Was it possible she needed some kind of psychological intervention?

“Hi,” she said, keeping her distance, even though most of her didn’t want to.

He pushed away from the car and closed the space between them, although he didn’t touch her. “I missed you yesterday.”

“I had to go to Seattle.”

She thought about mentioning the painting, but Kyle didn’t strike her as the type of guy who watched the local news.

He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “I’m sorry about the other night. You were sending me a clear message and I didn’t listen. I wanted...” He looked away, then back at her. “We both know what I wanted.” He drew in a breath. “The thing is, Nina, I like you. I like being around you. You were right—this started as some quest for me. To find you and make you mine.”

And he’d done a fine job of it, she thought. “A fling. You were clear on that. I have no complaints.”

His dark blue gaze locked with hers. “What I figured out is that’s not enough for me anymore.”

Her stomach tightened. What? He was breaking up with her, just when she’d come around to his way of thinking?

“I want more,” he continued. “I want to spend time with you. I want to get to know you better. I want us to be about more than sex. I care about you.”

Nina honest to God didn’t know what to say. “You’re talking about a relationship,” she said, then waited for him to start pointing and laughing. Because he couldn’t mean it. Twenty-six-year-old fighter jocks didn’t stand in front of her asking for an emotional connection. Of course, until Kyle they hadn’t been bugging her for sex, either, but that was an issue for another day.

“Yes,” he said simply. “I want us to be in a relationship. Is that a problem?”

She thought about how, except for a couple of nights ago, she felt free and content in his arms. How he made her laugh and was incredibly pretty to look at. Then she thought about Dylan and their kisses and, for a second, was genuinely confused.

“I, ah—”

The slow, sexy smile returned. “Don’t worry, Nina. I’m happy to have to work for it.”

She’d barely processed the words, let alone their meaning, when he turned and walked to his car. Before she could blink again, he was driving away. Thirty seconds later, a text buzzed onto her phone.

I’ll convince you
, was all it said.

Chapter Nineteen

AVERIL STUDIED THE table setting. Until recently they’d mostly used the large dining room set in the store for little more than a giant shelf. Other items were literally stacked on chairs and shoved onto the table. Cindy’d had the idea of using the table for its intended purpose, and displaying dishes on it as if someone were going to sit down to a meal. Averil had suggested they take that idea further to show off
four
place settings.

She and Cindy had put the leaves in the table, expanding it out to its full length, then had artfully draped four different tablecloths. One side showed off the Depression-era glass with its soft tones. An old sterling silver flatware set had been used with those items. Opposite was a more formal setting with beautiful Lennox and Waterford pieces, and so on.

The first weekend after the change, Cindy had sold three sets of dishes. Averil had high hopes for more.

The front door opened, and Nina walked in. She glanced around, as if searching for something, then asked, “Where’s Cindy?”

“Out back, spray painting a wooden drying rack we found. We’re going to use it to display linens.”

Nina still wore her scrubs from work. She looked rumpled and tired—as if she’d had a long day. She reached behind her and pulled off the band at the bottom of her braid, then finger-combed her hair.

“We need to talk,” she said wearily.

Averil stiffened. She immediately tried to figure out what complaint her sister had now and how she was going to explain that Nina was wrong. That was followed by the thought that she assumed she was in trouble. In light of her recent semirealization, she wanted to try to stay as in the moment as possible. If she could keep herself from falling into familiar patterns, maybe she could figure out what had gone wrong in her life and then fix it.

Nina sank into an overstuffed chair and covered her face with her hands. “That’s not exactly accurate,” she amended. “
I
need to talk, and I hope you’ll listen.” She glanced toward the back door. “Cindy’s going to be a bit, isn’t she?”

“I think so.”

Nina dropped her hands to her lap. “Good. I don’t especially want to entertain her with the disaster that is my personal life.”

“Understandable. What’s up?”

“I’m sleeping with Kyle.”

Averil nodded slowly. “Right. The fighter pilot guy. He came to dinner and didn’t run screaming when he met Mom and Bertie. He seems nice.” Young and not Nina’s type, but part of her new maturity was keeping tidbits like that to herself.

“He is nice. Very sweet and a god in bed.”

Averil grinned. “You have high-quality problems.”

Nina managed a smile. “I wish that was it, but it isn’t. Okay, it sort of is.” She paused. “I’m so confused. He wants more.”

Now it was Averil’s turn to not get it. “More, how? Like you tying him up? Because if you want to do that, you need a safe word.”

Nina stared at her. “What on earth? No, not tie me up. A safe word? How do you know stuff like that?”

“I live in California. Everybody does bondage in L.A.” Averil held in a laugh. “So, what do you mean by he wants more? Relationship more?”

Nina nodded. “He said that when this had started, he wanted a fling, but now he wants more. I think he was asking me to be his girlfriend.”

A surprise, Averil thought. Not that Nina didn’t have charms, but that she would let herself get close enough to Kyle for him to think that was possible. Being involved meant being vulnerable. Nina didn’t surrender emotionally to anyone.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t know,” Nina admitted. “It’s not what I was expecting. We’re having a fling and I was okay with that. I mean, my God, have you seen him? His body, that smile. I have to say when all that attention is turned on a girl, it’s tough to say no.”

“Do you like him?”

“Sure. I mean, what’s not to like? He’s the human male equivalent of a puppy. Adorable and fun. He works hard, plays hard and then falls asleep.”

“There’s more to him than that,” Averil insisted. “He has to have emotional depths.”

“I guess,” Nina said slowly, looking confused. “We don’t really talk about things. He talks about his family some. I know he wants to be a Blue Angel.”

Averil frowned. “The jets that fly around at air shows?”

“That would be them. He has a plan. But we don’t discuss much else. He tells me about his day, which involves a lot of talk about flying. Then we talk about my work, then we finish having dinner, then we have sex.”

“Sounds like a relationship to me,” Averil told her. “What are you objecting to?”

“I don’t know,” Nina admitted. “It’s just so strange. He’s leaving in a few months, so there’s a time limit. But it’s not as if we’re getting married.” She rubbed her temples. “I’m getting a headache from thinking about all of this.”

“You need to figure out what you want,” Averil said firmly. “Do you want to take things to the next level or do you want to keep things light?”

Nina nodded. “You’re right.”

Averil felt a glow of satisfaction. Words her sister never said to her. Being the calm one giving advice felt pretty damned good.

“Of course, if you’re going to try that next-level thing with Kyle, you’re going to have to figure out what you’re doing with Dylan.”

She was mostly teasing, but then Nina stared at her, eyes wide and filled with guilt.

“You’re sleeping with Dylan?” Averil asked, her voice rising with each word.

Nina glanced over her shoulder, then motioned for her to be quiet. “Don’t shout, and no. I’m not. We’re friends. Good friends who have a past. We’re not having sex.”

“I’m not sure I believe you. You’re doing something.”

Nina shifted in her seat. “We’ve kissed. It’s nothing.”

“Was there tongue? Because tongue isn’t nothing.”

Nina pressed her lips together. “I don’t feel I have to discuss that with you,” she said primly.

Averil leaned back in her chair. “You brought this conversation to me. For what it’s worth, I think it’s okay to sleep with them both. At least until you commit to Kyle.”